Social media: friend or foe?
A one-star review posted at four in the morning without a word of explanation is as welcome as a fart in a lift. Mobile phones should be fitted with an inebriation detection system that blocks the user any time they try to type when alcohol is detected by the keypad.
Tipsy timelines caused by alcohol-induced disruptions of the brain usually dissolve into polite apologies quicker than an Alka-Seltzer in hot water, especially once you point out the impossibility of being kicked in the face by a doorman stood on a staircase three steps below — a manoeuvre that would easily rival the signature acrobatic flip made famous by Bruce Lee.
If a dog and bone suspects there is a possibility the owner is seeing double, warnings should be issued to a wing man to step in and stop the senselessness. I will never get back the time I’ve wasted explaining the true facts of a matter, nor that which it took to shred the CV of a vituperative potty mouth who later applied for a job.
I miss sliding my finger along the envelope of a formal written criticism. Modern day dissatisfactions are telephonically typed, flippant, and often foul. Restrained responses either go unanswered or are simply met by an emoji with raised eyebrows, wide white eyes, blushing cheeks, and a nonchalant offer of remorse.
During a recent festivity, only one person was mesmerised by the pass and complemented the military precision with which plated meals were served: a Baby Boomer playing hoopla on the tail of a radio-controlled chimpanzee. Generation Z were hypnotised by their phones.
While I doth my cap at the technical expertise they demonstrate, life in an online world doesn’t nurture the soft skills and social etiquette required to lessen the risk of missing out on realising their self-professed potential, and a more Instagrammable existence.
Whenever I’ve sat down with the team to eat, phones are placed face down in the centre of the table, and the first person to check theirs picks up the tab. It is the reason why none of them have ever had to pay, and a lot to do with the fact that the core squad stays glued together.
Although it is debatable if life was, in fact, better before mobile phones, the quietude of my office certainly was. The repeated pain sensation by a chorus of alarm calls and alert tones from lost phones is enough to make you wish that the shape of the human ear could automatically adjust in order not to amplify the irritating frequencies.
Stash the ‘celly’ somewhere safe, forget about the filter, and soak up the scene. Only then will everybody appreciate how truly great social spaces can be.
